The ongoing development of IPTV and mobile TV has been bringing the telecom and broadcasting industries closer for some time now. The new IPTV middleware from Ericsson/TANDBERG Television was received with great interest from both customers and competitors.

Dwight Witherspoon, director of Tactical Marketing at Ericsson, says: “We have made tremendous progress on the middleware solution this year. We were very excited prior to the show, but anxious as well. We were pleased to see our customers, prospective customers and partners sharing our excitement.”

The Olympic Games in Beijing was cited as a major success for high definition (HD) TV. Rapid developments in broadcasting in China, potentially the world’s biggest television market, were discussed in several panel discussions and other sessions. Other topics discussed included personalized advertising, new business models for broadcasters and the new way of using radio spectrum resources called digital dividend.

The IBC Innovation Awards first prize went to the creators of the 3D stereoscopic music film, “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert”. And a first-ever live HD 3D interview was conducted with Jeffrey Katzenberg, from DreamWorks Animation, who received the 2008 IBC International Honor for Excellence. Katzenberg was interviewed by Elizabeth Daley, dean of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, and their conversation was captured in high-definition 3D and sent to Amsterdam over a live 3D high-definition link.

Witherspoon says IBC was a success for Ericsson/TANDBERG Television. “The show was excellent,” he says. “We demonstrated that we are coming together as one company proving our combined power as a television innovator.”

IBC is one of the world’s largest trade shows for the television industry, with more than 1400 companies represented at the exhibition. The conference offered discussions and keynote speeches from the world’s leading television authorities.